My Princess
by Mason705
Summary: When Chat Noir comes out of a one-on-one with a fearsome akuma, he is both physically and mentally scarred. But right now, he just considers himself lucky to have Marinette by his side, and he starts to realise that for all the nights he wasted chasing a mask, he had someone special next to him every day. And now, he's going to tell her how he feels.


My Princess - A Marichat Fluff One-Shot

Chat bit his lip as the cloth ran down his back. The aniceptic stung like fire, but the things on his mind distracted him from the pain. He had to tell her. Tell her everything.

He wiped the sweat from his clammy forehead.

"Hey, Princess, c- can we talk?" he shifted around on the end of her bed so that he could look at her: Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the prettiest girl in class and one of his closest friends, both as Adrien Agreste and as Chat Noir. Also, his biggest 'what if'.

"And to think, after all the time I spent dragging you here, you finally want to speak." She said it in a joking manner, but her tone didn't quite fit. "What's up?" Her voice was heavy, dry and seemed to carry a deep sadness in it. Chat supposed that she was being more tolerant of him tonight due to the ordeal he had just come out of.

Barely ten minutes ago, Chat had faced his first ever akuma attack completely alone. The first time when help never seemed to come. Or at least, when the help came too late. Ladybug was nowhere to be seen until the job was practically already done.

He had chased 'the Dreadonator' over the rooftops of Paris for what felt like an age before he finally caught him: an akuma with the power to create traumatising experiences to the eyes of his targets. Luckily for Paris, it only used its power on one person: Chat Noir himself, and he may have been damaged in that fight. Adrien saw things that unravelled his psyche and Ladybug only briefly appeared to de-evilize the akuma before having to rush off again.

Chat considered himself lucky that Mari had seen the fight on the news and had rushed down to pull him out. He was barely in a functional state at the time. Crawling on the ground, shivering and looking into space. Luckily, Marinette's parents were out on a date for the night, so she was able to let him in the front door for once. Just as lucky, he happened to catch the akuma only one block away from her parents' bakery, so it was a short walk to escape the night.

"I need t- to tell you s- somethings," Chat struggled to get his words out. Even in his own head his voice sounded frail; he needed to calm down. Her hands stopped working for a second, before continuing to clean one of the three large cuts down his back, reaching from his left shoulder down to his side.

"Like what, kitty?" He tilted his head down for a second, gathering himself. He loved it when she called him that.

"Like… how much you mean to me, and… you know, _those_ kind of things," he stuttered.

"Oh?" she sounded surprised, but not particularly annoyed; a nice change. "Is this the best time to try and seduce me, Chaton? I'm hardly the damsel in distress, tonight." She started wrapping a bandage around him.

"Nothing l- like that… Marinette. I wanted to t- tell you that I…" _I like you. Say it, you stupid cat! _"Um, I ap- preciate that you are always t- th-" he took a breath, and continued. "I appreciate... that you are always there for me. I don't know what I d- did to deserve that." _Damn it, calm down, Chat! Just straighten your voice out for one single sentence, please!_

"Well, you're there for all of Paris, aren't you? Someone's gotta look out for Paris' greatest hero."

"Greatest? LB is the greatest, I'm just her partner."

"Don't sell yourself short, Chat!" she slapped him lightly on the small area of his back that wasn't bruised or cut or grazed. "Where would she be without you? Where would Paris be? Like today…" she fell silent.

"Normal life intervened. Sometimes it c- can't be helped," he said. He was trying to believe it, but she took off without saying a thing. He was a psychological mess on the ground and she just dashed off. Took one look and left him, leaving a hole in his heart that Marinette was filling for her.

"This," she said, as she gently ran her hand over his back, "could have been helped. You shouldn't have gone through that. Especially not alone." He shivered. Her touch was gentle, cool and soft. Heavenly. _Speak up, Adrien!_

"I'm fine," he croaked. His throat was in a knot. Adrien's life had taken a massive twist. He had to go home with these scars. Try to explain to Natalie and his Dad how he got them; he couldn't hide them while modeling. Chat, of course, got the exact same injuries on the news, too. He would be found out, easily.

And how long would the Devastator grip him in his dreams and in the quietest moments of the day? He was traumatised.

Literally traumatised.

So how was he so caught up in this moment?

"Chat?" he realised that he'd been staring into thin air.

"Yes, princess?"

"It's okay if you aren't okay. I saw what you went through." He shut his eyes tight. He was cold, but he didn't want to pull the rest of his suit back on. At least he was all bandaged up, now,

"I'm…" he was about to parrot himself. "I, uh…" he wanted to be honest with her, yet he was about to lie on reflex. He had spent so much time hiding himself under the guises of Adrien Agreste, the model, and Chat Noir, the brave, flirtatious, joking superhero, that he'd forgotten how to open himself up to people.

The REAL him.

"I saw things, Mari..." he felt something rising to the surface, from deep inside his chest. "That akuma… I just hope he got no one else. Even after Lady did her…" he raised his hand to the air, "'miraculous Ladybug' thing, he's s- still in my head." He leaned forward, holding his head in his hands. "Th- the grip he had. This wasn't Sandboy or the Horrif- ficator or… this was s- something else."

He felt like he was choking. He didn't want to sob, but his body was on the verge of disobedience. He didn't want to look weak in front of her, but at the same time, he wanted to open up to her, and that was the crux of his problem: he wanted to look strong, but to do that, he'd have to lie. Just like he always stayed behind that cocky smile when he was with his Lady.

The lie of Chat Noir.

For the longest time, the mask felt liberating, and it was. It let him express a side of himself that he never got to show. But a part of him had to stay hidden. The part of him that is sensitive and scared and above all, lonely. And that part of him was ripping through every wall he put up to get out. The Devastator tore away his defenses. Broke him down.

He felt Mari's hand on his shoulder.

"Chat? Talk to me." Her voice was so inviting. The way it made him feel, he wasn't sure if it was killing him or if it was the only thing keeping him alive, and suddenly, he wasn't so afraid of being weak, even if just for a moment.

He shuddered.

The choking feeling released itself in a short, sharp exhale and he felt a tear run down his face.

_Deep breaths._

_In._

_Out._

_Slow and steady, Adrien._

He wanted to take off the mask. He wanted to put Chat Noir away for the night and just be nameless.

Not Adrien Agreste, the guy on all the billboards.

Not Chat Noir, Ladybug's joking sidekick.

Not the rich pretty boy that everyone around him thinks they know.

Like the Agreste name wasn't jammed next to his first.

Like every girl that ever _liked_ him didn't do so in the process of perving on him online, and that went for both his personas.

Like the only person that always loved him from the depths of her heart wasn't missing.

Like he didn't have to live everyday wondering if she was alive, or if she just decided to up and leave.

Like he didn't steal glances at his father and wonder if she left because of him, in the same way he wanted to run away every single day because of his rejection.

Like he wasn't slowly starting to hate him.

Like he didn't hate himself for wanting to leave his father as alone as he always felt.

But maybe he didn't have to be alone anymore. He wiped his hands over his eyes and felt Marinette wrapping her arms around him, pulling him in.

He was still a little bit afraid of getting too close to her, though, because everytime he felt something for her, there was that nagging voice in his head that reminded him that she might be like all the other girls: in love with the handsome male model. In love with the image on the front page of a sports wear mag. She didn't know him, but how could she?

He knew how she felt about Adrien Agreste - he's not _that_ oblivious - and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. Would she like the him that felt too much? He can smile like he's the happiest boy on Earth when he's in public, but can't bring himself to smile when he's alone. The only person that knew _that_ Adrien was Plagg.

What would she think of him?

He also used to think that maybe, just maybe, his Lady could find it within herself to care about him the way he cared about her. Look at him the way he used to look at her: like she was the one light in the ever expansive darkness he called _life_.

And he thought he was making progress with her, too, but the way she just left him today made it obvious that _his Lady_ was determined to push him away. She can't help what she does and doesn't feel, but no matter what was going on with her today, she shouldn't have done that. He was too used to that feeling of rejection from his father; it was killing him.

"I'm here for you, Chat," Marinette said, pulling him closer. Somehow, her voice always managed to break through the doubter in his head with ease. He leaned into her and she moved back so that his head lay in her lap, his legs still dangling off the foot of the bed. "Talk to me," she ran a hand through his hair. No one had done that for ages. His sobbing turned into a calm shudder. Like a purr.

"I saw... just… horrors," he breathed out slowly as his mind wandered back to fifteen minutes ago. "When I did catch him, I knew the only thing I could do was hold his attention until Lady came." The Dreadonator was an eight-foot tall monster of a being. A thin humanoid form with a brown layer of fur from head to toe, and red, rage filled eyes, like a charging bull. He was fast, too, with talon-like claws on his slender fingers that were tipped with a deadly hallucinogen.

"You did a good job, kitty," she said, stroking his head.

"Not good enough," Adrien said. Not with dismay or self-deprecation, but he stated it as a fact. "He caught me with those... claws," he made a three-fingered claw hand and drew it long across the air, "right across my back; you saw. They were poisoned, I think. Made me see things… things that w- weren't real." A brief image flashed before his eyes: a bloody, deformed hand, reaching out to him. Adrien blinked and the image disappeared.

_No, no, no, screw you,_ he thought, though who he was directing it at, he wasn't sure. Afterall, it was just his mind messing with him.

He closed his hands into fists at his sides to stop them from shaking, but Marinette gently took his elbows and drew them closer so that she could hold his hands. As he recounted, they shook more violently.

"I saw m- my Mum," he stuttered, "a- and my L- L-" he paused, "and Lady… bug, and… and you. They… y- you were all bloody... and crawling a- and… whispering t- to me. You all b- blamed me…" He felt something cold grip his arm, but when he looked up, there was nothing there. It felt exactly like the cold, dead hand of his mother - a hallucination of her, anyway - from his fight with the Dreadonator.

"Chat…" she sounded like she was about to cry herself.

"My Mum, sh- she grabbed me a- and sh- she s- s-" Adrien couldn't control his breathing. The cuts on his back were stinging, but the phantom pains dispersed when he felt Mari's hand run through his hair again. Was she crying? He felt a tear hit his forehead, but he couldn't tell if it was a figment of his mind or not

"She said th- that I- I'm the r- reas- reason she… she-" something seemed to just snap inside his heart, and he pulled his hands away from her to rub hard at his eyes. "She loved me," he reminded himself out loud. "God… she did. She _does, _I know it._"_ He was making what he felt was the most wretched, pathetic noise. Like a whining animal. He wasn't sobbing now; he was falling apart.

"Oh, Kitty…" She moved out from underneath his head. His eyes were now too blurred to be able to see what she was doing, but he felt her shift next to him on the bed and he shimmied up so that she didn't end up dangling off the end with him.

"I… I'm s- sorry, Prin- cess. You shouldn't ha- have to d- deal with this right now."

"No, I'm sorry," she said, burying her face in his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around his neck. _What is she sorry about? _

"Mari, you ha- have nothing t- to be sorry for." He covered her hand, which was gently feeling out his collarbone. "You're holding me t- together." For some reason this only seemed to make her sadder and she started shaking against him, mumbling indecipherable words into his neck. He rolled over and pulled her into a hug, wishing afterwards that he'd put into consideration the layer of sweat on his skin, not that Marinette seemed to mind.

They curled up into each other, legs intertwined. Her ragged breaths against his skin sent sensations throughout his body, extinguishing the tension in his chest. He started to feel a little braver as he slowly, ever so gently pushed the hair off her face, before bringing the hand back to brush it against her cheek.

"Princess, what's wrong?"

"I almost lost you, Chat. You scared me…"

"I'm sorry, Mar-"

"I just..." she interrupted. "I can't lose you. I need you… more than you know."

"Mari… I don't know what to say." _Oh my God, this is really happening._ "I… uh…" _Oh no, I literally don't know what to say._ "I need you, too."

"Yeah, you do." Chat raised an eyebrow and she smiled. "We need each other, kitty. Maybe in more ways than one." Chat felt heat rise to his face and he realised how prepared he was to accept that he needed her: his princess. Maybe, in retrospect, he needed Marinette tonight more than he needed Ladybug.

And just like that, Adrien had fallen for the girl over the mask, and he didn't even know it. He gazed deep into her eyes. Into her beautiful blues. Maybe he had a thing for girls with deep blue eyes? He gave her a small smile and for the first time in a long time, he didn't feel like it was even slightly forced.

_She needs me,_ he thought to himself. He liked being needed, especially by her.

They stayed pressed to one another for a long time. Looking into each other. Reading each other. And when he felt he was ready, Adrien opened his mouth once more.

"Princess, remember when I told you that there were some things that I needed to tell you?" She intertwined her fingers in his own.

"Yeah."

"Well, there are two things I really need to say: first off…" his voice trailed off as he leaned into her.

Her fingers tightened.

He took it slow.

Closer.

Closer.

"I love you."

Her mouth parted a little and he gave her every opportunity to stop him before he touched his lips to hers. And as if on cue, they both pulled into each other, Marinette loosening her arms around his neck as Adrien held her face delicately in his hands.

He felt like he'd been such an idiot. How much time had he wasted trying to woo Ladybug - a mask; a fake identity - with the persona of Chat Noir, when he had Marinette by his side all this time? The one person that managed to bring out the real him.

Not Chat Noir.

Not _Agreste._

Just Adrien.

Eventually, after a long, long time, they parted, even if it was just a few millimetres. Their eyes stayed closed and they were both breathing heavily.

"And the other thing, kitty?"

"Can you keep a secret, Mari?"

"Yes," she whispered, touching his cheek.

"Do you know what I'm about to tell you?"

"Yes," it came out in more of a sigh. "But only if you keep mine."

"Okay," he said, pulling into her. He kissed her face up and down. Starting on her forehead, then on the bridge of her nose, her lips, her chin, her throat.

"Claws in." He started to pull away, his costume - half of which was piled at his waist - dissolving off of him, but Marinette pressed his face back into her neck.

"Tikki… spots on." And Adrien's eyes widened as his lips pressed down on the slick black fabric of Ladybug's collar, and the two loves of his life became one.


End file.
